Today, Education Week featured my series on the children of immigrants in California. “Breaking Through” tells the stories of a number of naturalized immigrant children who are fighting for social ascension against a number of barriers. The stories are based in Los Angeles and the farm-worker city of Delano in the San Joaquin [...]

Yesenia Zamarripas is about to enter her sophomore year at Crenshaw High School. Her Mexican parents speak very little English, and so it’s been hard for Yesenia to keep up with her peers. Now, the pressure is mounting, and there’s no time to fall behind.

BREAKING THROUGH: The children of immigrants in California carry the legacy of their parents’ sacrifices and the promise of a better future for themselves and the state. But breaking free of cycles of poverty is a debilitating struggle, as we see among Latino youth in both Los Angeles and Delano.

OPINION: An overwhelming number of second generation immigrants are trapped under a low glass ceiling. We can either raise the roof, or bring it down on them, and take cover as California falls apart.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Last night I went to visit the Rodarte family in Delano, CA., for dinner and conversation about Mexico, farm working, immigration, and the merits of struggle as a motivational force.

OPINION: It is a rising theory that “Americanization” or “assimilation” to the negative aspects of American culture plays its part in impeding social upward mobility for second generation immigrants. Becoming “American,” then, becomes the opposite of what many immigrants envisioned for their children: a detrimental rather than beneficial force.

LISTEN: Inside America’s schools, a battle of perceptions is waging. Latino children and the children of immigrants are struggling to make tracks in a country with bifurcated views on immigration and deeply entrenched racial delineations.

LISTEN: The only way to unravel the dissolution of second generation Latino immigrants in Los Angeles, says Santee teacher Jose Lara, is to promote social justice education. “Multi-culturalism tends to be when we all just except each other and tolerate each other,” said Lara. “But we need more than that. We need justice.”

Although immigration policy has a tangible effect on the everyday lives of many students at Santee, it is the wider issue of race and cultural dissonance that permeates all corners of the city.